New Delhi : Troubled Air India recorded the highest number of cancellations amongst all domestic carriers in May, official data revealed Monday. Data released by the aviation regulator, Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), showed that the airline cancelled 3.2 percent of all its domestic flights in May.

The airline had cancelled 5.2 percent of all its domestic flights in April 2012. This has come as a surprise to many as the airline is not facing any labour problem in the domestic sector. However, the current pilots strike faced by the carrier in its international operations is being blamed for the adverse impact on its performance in the domestic circuit in May.

Senior Air India officials declined to comment on the data. Low-cost carriers IndiGo and Go Air had the least number of flight cancellations at 0.1 percent and 0.5 percent respectively. The passenger load factor of the Air India was even worse than that of cash-strapped Kingfisher Airlines.

The flag carrier s passenger load factor stood at 70.6, while that of Kingfisher Airlines stood at 73.3 percent. The highest passenger load factor was obtained by IndiGo at 86.3 percent in the period under review. Air India also had the worst on time performance (OTP) of all the six scheduled operators at 78 percent.

In comparison, then OTP of IndiGo stood at 91.5 percent, Go Air at 88.6 percent and Jet Airways and JetLite at 85.6 percent. Even Kingfisher Airlines had an OTP of 80.2 percent in the period under review. Air India and Jet Airways had one of the highest passenger complaint rates of 1.5 percent each - after IndiGo s two percent and Go Air s 1.9 percent. The airline had the fourth largest market share of 16.2 percent, preceded by SpiceJet at 18.5, Jet Airways at 21.4 percent and IndiGo at 24.9 percent.

The total passengers carried by all the domestic airlines in the period from January-April 2012 grew by 5.34 percent at 258.07 lakh passengers.

"Passengers carried by domestic airlines during Jan-May 2012 were 258.07 lakh as against 244.98 lakh during the corresponding period of previous year thereby registering a growth of plus 5.34 percent," DGCA said in its monthly data report.

However, on the month-on-month basis the passengers carried during the period fell marginally by 0.87 percent at 54.48 lakh from 54.96 lakh carried in the corresponding month of 2011.